I only occasionally buy direct from Orafol, it’s rare that I need an entire roll - tho their local distributor is quite pleasant.
Mostly we buy via our sign shops or a sign supply company. McLogan for example will, sell you as little as one yard of any roll they have in stock and they generally stock nearly everything or could be sweet talked into ordering it for you. Sign supply employees tend to be either funky artists, crochety old farts or both and in my experience are always very helpful with questions and helping you track down the right material for your job.
Most any sign shop (they’re all over, sometimes in the form of a mall cart that cuts stickers on the spot) will be happy to sell or give you small amounts of vinyl if they have the color you’re interested in. We’ve found buying from Amazon very iffy in the past - often the material is mislabeled or old stock with bad adhesive.
If you’re doing a one-off or a small run, you might also consider Rub’n’Buff - it’s a coloured “wax” that becomes pretty darn permanent after you rub it in. I haven’t actually tried it on acrylic, but it’s worked perfectly on wood, and leather - and is matte.
Have you thought about looking at book binding materials? We quite often use gold, silver, copper for inlays when finishing off book covers. Must be a few suppliers over your side of the water. Use real BB material and don’t use Amazon or eBay! Also look at leathercraft suppliers. I use one all the time called Tandy Leather. They can be trusted and sell good products google Tandy Leather, a great time. Good luck
I brought some foil with me from UK, but I left my blocking press behind - wrong power supply.
Worked for Cox and Wyman in the old days, as a litho chaser. Mixed background, you might say !
John
I’m a veteran with combat injuries and I did my BB training with Shepherds of London, the holders of the Sangorski books. Our bindery in on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, it’s a very large thatched cottage, beautiful. I combine my book making with leathercraft and pen turning. I had an exhibition in the Mall Galleries in London just before Covid. I worked in the US for a longtime in Dallas/Fort Worth area. Do you find that there are some supplies you can’t get from U.K.?
Hi Gareth,
Thanks for the background. I can most simply reciprocate by sending you to www.fanmaker.co.uk.
Somewhat out of date, but will give you a taster !
So far, I’ve been pursuing alternative routes, by trying to utilize my weird collection of background knowledge in novel ways, trying to design and make a fan based on the Staffordshire Hoard gold/garnet work.
Slowly getting there, and learning new techniques on the way.
'Twas ever thus !
John
That’s interesting, one of my degrees is in forensic archaeology and when there wasn’t any forensic archaeology to do I was looking at domestic archaeology. I love history. Even in Afghanistan i got a bit of downtime, so I would dig some hole and see what would come out.
I want to do a Swarovski effect style pen. But, firstly I want to start off by doing a “Royal” pen for the king’s coronation and I want to use my GF+ to engrave the pen barrel with some key dates.
Stay safe John. Here if you want a chat about good old Blighty.
Just a recent interest - Prehistory.
We’ve become very interested since we came across “Standing with Stones” a film on YouTube.
We’d like to get to view more US sites, but age is getting in the way of mobility !
Just visited my website, and I’d forgotten that I had deleted most of my background details.
My military was electronics in R.Sigs, with 5 years in Malaysia with Gurkha Sigs.
Interesting times !
You would have to seal it but mica would work. It is possible to use it with gum Arabic and get a paint- like substance but it would still need sealing.
I’ll have to look for that video. My degree was in Classics (ie Greek and Roman mostly) but pre history and paleontology are fascinating.
I totally get the moving around part- besides not being able to fly due to circulatory problems (5 ports and way too many other lines) I’ve broken both hips and had 3 back surgeries. Travel is mainly a dream.
I’ve just had my high hopes dashed by another failure. I found a product made by(?) LabelOutfitters.com, in 8.5 x 11 sheets. When it arrived this morning, the appearance was exactly right - slightly matte gold.
Problem is, Goldfinger can’t cut through it !
Thinking about it, I begin to suspect that the ‘gold’ products that do laser cut, are vacuum deposited films, only a few hundredths of a micron thick, deposited on a plastic support, whereas this product has an aluminum layer measured in tens of microns, or thousands of times thicker.
Ho hum, back to research.
My next attempt is the ‘matte’ the surface of material that is too shiny for my taste, using 'Bar Keeper’s Friend.
No, that didn’t work !
I’ve just realized that as part of my design, the ‘gold’ has to be engraved from the front, as well as pierced, so this isn’t going to work for me.
John
It’s a lot of labor but you could gild with gold leaf or deco foil- apply paper tape masking, cut the pattern, weed out the parts that should be gold, apply gilding adhesive, remove masking, apply gilding, brush away excess.
Yup !
The fundamental reason that I moved past gilding is the effect that all liquids have on such thin pieces of wood, namely they warp in unpredictable ways.
When I first considered the whole project, I assumed my ability to gild with either water gilding or oil gilding would work.
Many months later, having gone down many rabbit holes, but learning a lot along the way, I can finally see a way forward.
When I’ve got there, I’ll post the whole process on a new thread.
John
The woman I learned from about doing French Cloisonne pointed out that most of the time mercury gilding was the easiest if not the healthiest way things were done at that time, and that to get that same effect you needed to use the same method.
So she built an elaborate chamber that would capture the mercury/air mixture and collect it in a filter that could be disposed of as hazardous waste. This was over 50 years ago and might not even be legal now. but might be a direction to think about to achieve what was done without destroying the world.
